The BridgeCommunity is laser-focused on building relationships between corporations and startups. We measure our immediate success by the number of pilots, proofs of concept and licensing deals that close during the 6 months of our program.
But our program creates momentum beyond pilots.
Since April 2017 the BridgeCommunity’s 2017 startup cohort collectively:
- Hired 54 new employees
- Raised over $5M in venture capital funding
- Increased month over month revenue by 57%*
*Four pre-revenue startups that reached revenue during the program are not included due to their infinite growth rate
Here are some other accomplishments and recognition our 2017 startup cohort received during their time in this year’s program:
- Cinamaker Inc. announced the launch of their private beta program for the Cinamaker Director Pad at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas.
- Cybraics won “Best of Ballston” for Most Innovative Company, the TAG SSA “Emerging Mega Trends” Impact award, and most innovative tech company in South Florida. They were also selected as one of Atlanta’s “Best and Brightest Companies to work for,” and Cybraics Board Chair, Jamie Dos Santos, was recognized as a South Florida influential businesswoman for 2017. The team also collaborated on a machine learning approach to cybersecurity that earned a bronze Edison award.
- Dream Agility was named one of only 35 official approved global Google Shopping Partners. Out of the top 10 SEM’s in the UK, they have been either number 1, or in the top 5, every month for 12 months – with growth nearly 300% more than the average of the top 10 SEM’s in the UK. Dream Agility has expanded their reach from 6 countries to 20, joined the KStart accelerator in Korea, became a Bing Partner (one of only a few in the UK) and they consult on Bing’s UK tech roadmap. They also worked with the Mayor of Greater Manchester and Schools to push the tech agenda, resulting in a bid being put together for £6m for the local college to build a much needed dedicated tech apprenticeship center. They are the fastest growing agency in Australia and signed the 6th biggest retailer in Australia with a $6bn turnover. Elizabeth Clark, CEO & Co-Founder of Dream Agility, was a highlighted speaker at SMX London.
- MARK Labs was selected by Money 20/20 for Startup Pitch and accepted into the PeaceTech Labs Accelerator.
- PayLow Rate signed their first lending partner. They partnered with Case Credit Union, closed with 1st National Bank and are rolling out their first live financial tech kiosk this winter.
- Pratter landed articles in Employee Benefit Advisor, “Transparency tool seeks end to secret pricing” and “Skyrocketing healthcare costs drives physician to create transparency app,” and was named as one of 21 innovators who are transforming benefits technology.
- PrivOps founder, Tyler Johnson, was a panelist at the TAG Cloud event on hybrid cloud. Convergent recently pivoted to become PrivOps, with a narrower focus on General Data Protection Regulation compliance software. Read a deep dive story about their pivot.
- Pyur Solutions was accepted into Fall 2017 Plug and Play Accelerator Food and Beverage Batch 2, the Fall 2017 Food Systems 6 Accelerator Cohort 2, and the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator 2017 cohort.
- re:3D received $180K equity free from WeWork’s Creator Awards Competition. They made the cover of Tribeza, were featured in Wired and won Wired’s Pitch Distilled in San Francisco. Their 3D printed replica of destroyed Palmyra Tetrapylon was showcased at Creative Commons Summit.
- Reply.ai was ranked by Forrester Research in their “Top 10 Chatbots for Enterprise Customer Support,” selected as Zendesk’s preferred chatbot partner, won 4 Clios, and were featured in Bustle’s “8 Creative Ways American Women Marked Equal Pay Day In 2017.” Clara Desoto, co-founder of Reply.ai, gave the closing keynote at the VentureBeat MB 2017 conference and spoke at the SuperBot Conference in San Francisco.
- SetList7 landed a promotional relationship with music artist, Big Boi.
- Skignz was listed in DisruptorDaily’s Top 10 VR/AR to watch in Marketing.
- Starling Trust added former U.K. Financial Conduct Authority chief, Martin Wheatley to their Board and wrote an OpEd piece in Fox Business.
- Trust Stamp closed a $2.67M bridge-round, were one of 12 cybersecurity companies selected to participate in CIO/CISO pitch session at Baker Donelson’s Cybercon 2017, and a 2017 Atlanta Metro Export Challenge Semi-Finalist. Andrew Gowasack, the CEO & Co-founder of Trust Stamp, wrote “Facial biometric authentication, the future of the tech industry?” published in e27. The company was plugged as one of 10 Amazing AI Startups You Won’t Find in Silicon Valley in INC. Magazine, is a nominee for “Most Innovative Company” at Inman Connect 2017, joined a cadre of the world’s top FinTech startups at Money 20/20’s Startup Challenge and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance added them to their membership.
- Two of our startups – Tawkers and GridQuire – opened their networks to each other, resulting in $400K in strategic funding and newly scheduled meetings with major publishers for Tawkers.
- Verady has pivoted to offer VeraNet, an auditing service for blockchain transactions. The team is being approached by auditing/accounting firms and hedge funds to partner and develop a general offering of the product in an easy to use and accessible network form. Read a deep dive story about their pivot.